…sorry for the accidental inclusion of a sermon video link in my last post.  A correction has been made on my main site: http://www.storiesofvalue.com.

Blessed and Forever Blessed

If the term “beatitude” is the Latin word for happiness, and if lasting happiness is received as our will is given over to the will of the Father, then we want to pursue Jesus’ instruction with a passion.  We are reminded of the cider grinder and the role of the cloth that filters out impurities with each pouring.  All of God’s Word is a filter through which our souls pass, and as it convicts us, more of the 100% Jesus is revealed.

We filter our hearts, but we also fasten our gaze on perfection.  The filter removes dross, but the grace, peace and love of the Savior up our empty places and brings light and life where death once reigned.

It is true our world has a very different view of happiness.  Here, we focus on satisfying every desire, and are forever tempted by envy and selfish ambition.  We approach the diseases of the heart and mind in a secular fashion, and seek to find peace by denying the existence of sin and relinquishing our responsibility to a moral creator.  There is, of course, a healthy ambition, and the secular sciences have many truthful observations to share.  But to be blessed in the deepest sense we must know God and embrace His will for our lives.

Centuries ago Solomon discovered this principle.  He wrote, “I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly–my mind still guiding me with wisdom” (Ecclesiastes 2:3a).  But after he had exhausted every possibility he concluded, “Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 2:11).  Real happiness comes from above.